"Stick
on to me and get out of this."
"I'm all right! Leave me alone, can't you! How often have I a damned
chance of enjoying myself?"
It was the first syllable of bad language that Gammon had heard from
Polperro's lips. Struck with the fact, and all the more conscious of
his duty to this high-born madman, he hit on a device for rescuing
him from the crowd.
"Look!" he cried suddenly, "there's Greenacre!"
"Where?" replied the other, all eagerness.
"Just in front; don't you see him? This way; come along, or we shall
lose him."
Flecks of dim white had for some minutes been visible above their
heads; it was beginning to snow. Gammon shouldered his way steadily,
careful not to come into quarrelsome conflict. Polperro hung on
behind, shouting Greenacre's name. This clamour and the loss of his
hat drew attention upon him; he was a mark for squirts and missiles,
to say nothing of verbal insult. St. Paul's struck the first note of
twelve, and from all the bestial mob arose a howl and roar. Polperro
happened to press against a drunken woman; she caught him by his
disordered hair and tugged at it, yelling into his face.
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